Letter 8

This is the fourth chronological letter we have from Tacitus, written in 335 YBCE written in parts that were before, during, and after the conquest of Gomorrah. It is an exceptionally long letter and, perhaps due to the brutality of the warfront, several parts of it have been lost; the original letters were in tatters and even after restoration, were still incomplete, with several days missing. As aforementioned, the conquest to face Gomorrah saw Julia lead an entire legion, which harbored an estimated 50,000 men, into the then-wilds of Northern Britannia to face the terrible Leviathan. This letter, written over the course of several weeks, shows the siege efforts to break through the Leviathan’s lines, the horrors of what was lost, and a princeps’ desperate efforts to give her father solace. Or perhaps, as Tacitus mentions, solace for herself.

- E. Celestina

We made it to the outskirts of the city Gomorrah was residing: a town called Sodomia. According to the locals of the northern plains, Sodomia was a bustling hotspot of brothels, taverns and free-spirited adventurers—but now it was under the rule of the most terrible dragon I had ever laid my eyes upon. Augusta’s cohort always took point, so we were the first to see the beast’s shadow hidden amongst the stormy clouds a great distance away. Its shadow cast an ominous gloom across the growing frigid grassplains. With dragonkin attacks becoming frequent, Augusta ordered the legion to take a spearhead formation, with hers at the front: creating a break in the line of terrible beasts that could eventually be pushed through with the rest of the legion. As I write this, the success has yet to be seen. Ten percent of our forces have either fallen or become too frostbitten to continue. The Wyverns, those winged beasts of ice, have carried many of our lost men over the horizon, to hells I cannot bear to fathom. While our hired Warlocks are providing us with the assistance that we desperately need, it would take more than just brute force to shatter the barrier that Gomorrah has sent at us.

I meet with the princeps tonight. I hope that she has something in mind to break this tie.

I know not if this plan was genius, or unnecessarily cruel. Yet after one week of failures and even further loss, such as the complete destruction of the 3rd cohort, I was admittedly willing to set my precautions aside.

Augusta had correctly, but perhaps not rightly, concluded that the effectiveness of our equestrian units was limited. Horsemen were optimal against ground enemies, yet the Dragonkin of Order were nearly always winged, making our cavalry larger targets rather than decisive shock troops. Her choice, her strategy, was met with widespread controversy: the horses alone would not run toward the beasts, naturally, so brave equestrians who were willing to have their lives taken took point, and would charge straight into the icy territory of the enemy. Then, the next phase would take place—which annihilated the enemy’s forces, yet at costs terrible.

This plan was announced yesterday, yet for that entire day she was met with much resistance from both officers and enlisted, all unwilling to simply throw away hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives and their most effective method of transportation. Yet, her words that night, in the middle of supper, made many shift their hearts.

“Many of us have already thrown our lives away! Ten days of fighting, and we have only pushed the line by a mere ten meters. Thousands have died, so what is a thousand more? And, regardless—I will be a part of the charge.”

She had entered the tent after her brief words. I went inside immediately and protested her decision.

“Do you think the Princeps should serve or be served, Tribune Livia?”

Invoking the name of my mother in such a situation as that lowered my guard. Tentatively, but not happily, I let her go forward with her plan and watched the next morning as she donned her helmet and was given not her typical shield and spear, but a bow and arrow. Nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine men followed her toward the front lines, where the Warlocks had finished coating the horses’ fur in the black tar. They seemed disgruntled, as if they knew what was about to become of them. As soon as the sun broke, they charged into the icy plains and were immediately scoured by terrible Wyverns. Even as she heard her men scream in agony and be taken away, she ordered them to keep pressing forward, attempting to catch the attention of as many Wyverns and Wyrms as possible. By my estimate, thirty percent of her forces were killed or taken away before she gave the order to dismount.

All at once, the seven-hundred-or-so men dismounted their steeds which, now surrounded by countless predators, broke into chaotic gallops every which way, being picked off and carried into the sky. Hundreds of our horses were lifted into the air, helplessly neighing and whinnying as Augusta gave the order to Testudo(1), forming a defensive base with her at the center, preventing any beasts from easily grabbing any single man. It was then that I saw a flaming arrow, her own arrow, fire into the sky and strike a tar-covered steed. Within moments, I can only recall the sky becoming a great, blazing haze of pale green fire, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in my entire life. The horses burned, yet so did their captors that let go of them in a panic, only for the horses to crash into more Wyverns, spreading the sticky black tar and setting the entire sky into a horrid light. A terrible smell, one that I could smell even from my distance, and so must have been unbearable from Augusta’s, overcame my nose as the Wyverns were cooked from the Princeps’ fireworks. As the beasts fell and burned by the hundreds, I ordered the rest of the Legion to meet up with her, and to kill any surviving Wyverns that were crippled on the ground. Thus was the first, and only day that more monsters were killed than men: over a thousand deaths of the dragons, compared to only a few hundred of our own.

I gave Augusta a reserve horse, though she did not speak to me as she climbed atop. She did, however, allow me a pat on her shoulder.

(Mostly lost. The following is what remains. -E. Celestina)

…The beast’s wings stretched from town-end to town-end, its neck the length of several towers, its teeth as thick as a man’s torso. Its body of ice, snow, blue and white and devoid of all warmth…

…Desertion was a high concern, so we coerced men to remain with promises of double salaries upon their return, but often even this was not enough…

…[Augusta] ordered the Legion to surround Sodomia, yet even after committing to a siege, Gomorrah smashed through any advancing centuries…

…played the same black tar trick, yet the proximity of our men made it difficult to…

…a blizzard crippled our cohorts, forcing some of us to sacrifice some of our own horses just to…

Augusta, no, Lady Julia, I know not of what your thoughts are, but with half our men succumbed to the frost, and with all who remain hypothermic, I dearly hope your experiments with the Wyvern wings bring about even some success. I know not of how much longer we can stand to bear this freeze. Your father was a great man, and no one doubted him, yet even so…

This happened only yesterday, yet even as I write this with my pen, I still remain in disbelief.

Augusta ordered the cohorts to remain firm. Despite our shortages of food, and the constant cold that bore down upon us that the black tar could only barely keep us warm against, the legion kept its position, each man taking the place of the previous that fell. By our census, by the 30th of the Month of Fatherhood, our numbers had fallen to less than twenty-five thousand, with many of them hypothermic and frostbitten, even with the black tars keeping our pyres lit. Yet, their agony was all for a specific purpose, and it is the reason why Augusta had been holding out the cohort for so long.

In truth, our siege of Sodomia was the only reason why Gomorrah hadn’t begun invasions to other towns. Our trick with the black tar had caused many of the Wyverns to attack from the ground out of fear of being burned out of the sky, allowing them to be easier targets and forcing Gomorrah’s forces to the ground. All throughout the day and night, we could hear the beast’s roars of frustration beneath the everthunderous clouds that barely obscured its massive body. Though the Dragonkin were grounded, it still did not make up for the truth that they were much more suited to the temperatures. Thus, for every Wyvern slain, an estimated five Exetians were traded in turn; an attrition that would, in all aspects and estimations, result in our unfortunate loss. Thus, once again, Augusta turned away from simple brute force and turned to the Warlocks for a solution.

The black tar, while still effective, was less used for battle due in part to the Wyverns choosing to be grounded, splitting the risk between their forces and our own. Instead, taking the corpse of a fallen Wyvern with intact wings, Augusta had ordered to slice them off. I had once read that, when a human is injected with the blood of a Dragonkin, their body at the most basic level becomes akin to that of a Dragon—in many regards, a new alternate species of human—a Dragonblood. Logically, Augusta had surmised, the same must be if we injected other creatures with dragon’s blood, though the princeps was taking the step even further. I remember as they tied down and numbed the strongest steeds we still had, and carved holes into their sides and implanted the wyvern’s wings into them. The horses, often, were overtaken by Order, and became lifeless husks of ice. There were a few that showed promise after a few moments, but collapsed and perished of exhaustion only moments later. Her gambit, to create a flying horse, a Pegasus like of legend, was becoming just a fleeting dream. And under her thumb, more of her men continued to die as the days and weeks passed.

I recall, on the 29th of the Month of Fatherhood, entering her tent and heavily requesting her to turn back and abandon this expedition. Yet, the cold flame in her eyes told me that such a request, she could not honor. For her, to turn her back on this conquest would mean spitting on the face of all who had died to get to this point: over twenty thousand men, 3 entire cohorts, countless officers and centurions and legionnaires, and she could not fathom making their losses meaningless. I argued, that night, that turning back would mean preserving her own life, and the life of those who remain, so that we may return with a stronger force tomorrow.

“And what if there is not a tomorrow!?”

I remember hesitating to speak at all as she lashed her words at me. “I must bring one, Tacitus. No one else can. It has to be us. It will happen. May you trust me, just a little longer?”

She extended her hand. I bowed and kissed it, as one does with the Princeps. Though, from the look on her face after, it seemed as if she wanted me to simply shake it. I told her I would trust her for three more days, but afterward we were to pull out, retreat, and request the help of the other legions. Such as fate would turn out, and much to the surprise of myself, we only had to wait one more day before one of the horses the Warlocks were testing on finally took.

On the morning of the 30th, Augusta mounted the wyvern-winged horse, its body cold and eyes that glowed an unnatural blue. Around its legs were ropes latched to four tar barrels which the Warlocks had induced a spell that reduced their weight and obscured their view. Augusta disallowed any other soldier to take her role, and decreed that if she did not complete her objective, and if Exetia were to still remain, that the bloodline continue through her cousin, nephew of Constantinus, barely old enough at the time to speak. She took to the skies upon the feathery, icy wings; yet it was those same wings that caused the Wyverns to not recognize the steed as an enemy, and she bypassed the swaths of beasts with ease. Leaving us behind, I consolidated our troops, creating a sudden offensive front that forced much of Gomorrah’s beasts to face us instead of the princeps.

At my distance, all I could see was the princeps ascending higher toward the stormclouds. That is when we heard that echoing roar develop a terribly recognizable tongue.

“The daughter.”

Our men paused. The great beast had spoken.

My fear for her life superseded all protocol. I delegated my command position to Cassian as I took a horse and a century, then broke rank into enemy territory, cutting down Wyverns in such quick succession that my death was a mere afterthought. One had grabbed hold of my shoulder, yet without looking, I slashed its claws off with my gladius. My sword and spear were stained with freezing blue blood, as I watched the Leviathan thrash and roar at a princeps I could no longer see. My horse had tired halfway to Sodomia’s outer town, yet I pressed it to keep its gallop. The sound of horses and men shouting and grunting aside myself had dwindled, and at that current moment, I knew not that there were only nine or ten of the hundred men that I had carried with me left.

Warmth returned before we could be picked off. The thunderclouds parted with a sudden, immense pressure of wind that nearly blew me off my steed. Gazing upwards, the immense, winged beast of unimaginable size, whose body could crush even the greatest cathedrals, made a horrid gargle with its mouth, for a familiar greenish fire coated its face and seemed to be shoved down its throat. A winged horse continued to encircle it as the Leviathan flailed its limbs. Yet, it could not strike her.

The artificial Pegasus seemed to shine as bright as Gomorrah’s eyes as it accelerated toward the Leviathan’s chest. Drusus had once taught that, though Leviathans were of great size, they were, in the end, simply a supersized Wyvern and had all of the same basic weaknesses—one of which being a vulnerable underbelly. This, the princeps had taken full advantage of. At speeds of a goddess, she struck the tyrannical beast in its chest, at heights and paces I could not fathom from the ground. Gomorrah shuddered, made a final cry of agonizing pain as the tarfire consumed its entire head, then fell backward, slow yet immense, its wings tattered as it crashed upon the lifeless town.

Such was the report of the men behind me. My own eyes were present upon something much more pressing. I saw her, fallen off of her flying steed, which seemed to have transformed into nothing more than a mass of ice, collapsing just as the beast she had miraculously slain.

She hit the snow hundreds of meters ahead of me. A stray Wyvern had noticed her, encircling then lowering down to her. With an emotion I seldom felt growing in the back of my throat, I hefted my spear, stood upon my weakened horse and threw it with such force I had caused my steed to collapse. The speartip struck the Wyvern in the neck, and it cried and coughed up freezing blue, twitching and collapsing into the snow. I found her under the snow, barely able to move.

Crying.

When my men got near, I ordered them to remain in their place. Something in me told me that she would not like to see her people see her sobs. I knelt down, helping her up just as before. Her body lurched forward, her arms embracing me.

She held me. Cried even further. I could only remain, perhaps for seconds, maybe minutes, though in my mind, I wanted it to be hours.

“He can rest now, yes?” she had quietly asked. Quietly, I nodded back, and her sobs turned to sniffles.

“And you can rest as well, Julia.”

Her grief persisted, so I remained, until she tired herself out and fell asleep. I was not concerned, as the beating of her heart against my chest and her steady breathing told me I had little to worry about in terms of vitals. I removed my coat, wrapped it around her, and carried her out of the depression of snow. I emerged to the sound of Exetia’s victorious cheers.

I think I preferred her gentle snoring.

Footnotes:

1. Testudo: A formation where soldiers interlock their shields on all sides and above them, creating a slow-moving but highly defensive formation.